


And I Don't Know, Is This The Part Where You Let Go?

by Never_Says_Die



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, But c'mon...have you READ my stuff?, Kinda tropey, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Sterek Campaign, That has a happy ending, slow-build Sterek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Never_Says_Die/pseuds/Never_Says_Die
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sterek Campaign commission for Rynne wherein Stiles finds out that "spark" means so much more than just being able to make magic dirt do what he wants.  And he may not be able to do the things Scott does, but Stiles can do things that NO ONE else can.  With the threat of the Alpha Pack hanging over their heads, he sets himself to developing his new skills.  As he learns more, he realizes that there's something he can do to make himself even stronger--after all, even a human who just runs with them can find strength in a pack.   Nothing comes for free, though, and if Stiles can't tie himself and his newfound power to the pack, the price is steep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rynne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynne/gifts).



> Woohoo. So, here starts the longest of my commissions for the Sterek Campaign (and, uh...the one I'm kind of not done with, yet. But this is running way over the word limit the prompter paid for, so I think it's okay?). Obviously, I'm incorporating some S3 spoilers (Jackson leaving) and ignoring others (Erica and Boyd belong together, damn it!). 
> 
> Also, I got about fifteen pages in before I realized that the premise is fairly similar to the wonderful "Wolf Whistle" series (of which I am an ardent admirer). I think my take is quite different from those works beyond the structural similarities of Magic!Stiles' strength being tied to Derek's pack--and in particular, Derek himself--with dire consequences if he can't anchor his magic to them, but I want to publicly state that I mean absolutely no disrespect to the author of the Wolf Whistle series, and I promise the storyline does diverge from her (incredible) mythology. 
> 
> Still with me? Then please enjoy. Next part should be going up sometime tomorrow night :) Title is from Hem's "The Part Where You Let Go" if anyone is curious.

_Now_

Everything hurts.

That’s all he can think of, all he can focus on. Everything hurts and that is the beginning and the end of his whole world. _Backlash_. The thought flits through his brain, hazy and half-formed and was this what Deaton was talking about? Warning him about? This isn’t backlash. This is his blood boiling in his veins, his vision whiting out as though every nerve inside of him is overloading, his heart pounding so fast it _has_ to be about to batter itself to pieces on his ribcage. There are flashes of other sensations—screaming all around him, the dim register of figures moving towards him in the corner of his fading vision, a warm, wet sensation on his face that some part of him realizes is _blood_ …blood leaking in steady rivulets from his mouth, his nose, his ears, blood trickling from his _eyes_. 

Mostly, though, there is just the all-encompassing, white-hot **hurt**. 

He hits the ground, back and shoulders jarring painfully against rocks and roots, but he barely notices above the pain crashing over his body in waves. It’s centered in his chest, hardest and hottest right over his heart, and the pain is lightning jolting hi over and over again. _Backlash_ , he thinks, and it’s so much more than what the word implies, so much more than overextending this fledgling part of himself he’s only recently been exploring and suffering for it. 

He thinks he’s probably dying. 

Dying. He’s dying and he knew, he _knew_ this was the most likely outcome, had prepared himself for it as much as one possibly can prepare for such a thing. That didn’t mean he hadn’t _hoped_ , hadn’t thought that maybe, somehow, he’d be able to pull a miracle out of thin air. He’s willing to die for this, for what he knows is happening even as _power_ rips through him and out of him and burns him from the inside out. He’s willing to die for it, for the voices he can hear screaming his name, for the hands that are scrabbling over his body as he jerks and twitches on the ground. 

He’s dying, but he’s dying for _them_ , dying for people he cares about and people he’s come to love, and that almost—almost—makes it okay. He’s dying to protect them, and he thinks he can smile at that, thinks his lips stretch into a grin. Someone gasps, heard even above the screaming and the shouting, and there’s a part of him that knows what he must look like—knows he must look terrible and dangerous and **insane** with his body jerking and his blood streaking down his face. 

He knows what he must look like, and he wants to reassure, wants to tell them that it’s okay. That he knew what he was getting into, and knew what the price might be; he knew and he did it anyway, and he doesn’t regret it. _Can’t_ regret it if it keeps them all safe. Keeps his dad safe. Keeps Scott’s mom safe. He wants to tell them, but all that comes out is a choking, bloody moan and he can’t make his mouth work. 

He wants to apologize. He wants to say a thousand things. He wants to tell them he’s sorry for not telling them the price he’d have to pay, wants to tell them that he knew it was a long shot, and wants to ask them to look out for his dad. He wants to tell Scott he loves him like a brother, to tell Lydia that she’s still perfect to him, even with all her flaws, and he wants to tell Isaac that he’s glad they got to be friends before it was too late. He wants to tell Erica that he’s sorry he didn’t realize how awesome she is earlier, and he wants to extract a completely unnecessary promise from Boyd that he’ll take care of her. 

He wants to tell them not to be angry with Derek, that this isn’t Derek’s fault.

He wants to tell Derek…

It doesn’t matter what he wants to tell Derek, though, because he’s dying right in front of them, his words stuck under a tongue that won’t obey his commands and swamped in thick blood that’s crawling up his throat. If the power doesn’t sear him to ashes, he’s going to drown in his own blood and he has no idea which would be the kinder way to go. 

There are hands clutching at him, squeezing his fingers, drawing him up to rest his head in a soft lap. Someone is crying, someone is screaming at him, someone is shouting about ambulances and hospitals and it doesn’t matter because he’s dying. He’s dying, and this is what Deaton warned him about all those weeks ago. He’s dying and he won’t regret it, can’t regret it, _doesn’t_ regret it. 

There are screams now all around him, unearthly howls that don’t belong to any of the people he’s trying to protect. A grim sort of satisfaction wells up in him even as the pain crests to new heights and the haze over his vision starts getting darker. The power is racing, pouring, spewing out of him, obeying his will and killing him to do it, but it’s okay. 

It’s okay. He doesn’t regret this. 

He’s fading now, and he knows it. Even the godawful _hurt_ of what he’s working is becoming muted and distant. The noises around him are growing dimmer, and he can barely feel the hand clutching his own, can barely distinguish where he’s lying against the softness of one of Lydia’s dresses. He can’t hear his friends’ voices anymore, and it’s okay. It is. It has to be. 

Because he always knew it could end up like this, always knew it was a possibility. Even if he’d known for _sure_ that he’d go like this—lying on the cold ground while his body raced with itself to see if the magnitude of the forces he’s commanding can make his heart give out before he chokes to death on his own blood—he knows he wouldn’t have changed his mind. It’s the best he can do after…after everything. All the mistakes he’s made and the shitty things he’s put his dad through and the stupid, _stupid_ way he’d dragged his best friend into this mess (even if he knows Scott doesn’t blame him) and the times he’s been a crappy friend. Let this make up for all the times he’s been a selfish asshole once and for all. 

He’s gasping, his chest heaving, and he can’t seem to get enough air in his lungs. Blood is thick and hot on the tongue that won’t work, and all he can hear now is the jackhammer pace of his heartbeat. Everything hurts. Everything hurts, and he’s dying, he knows he’s dying and he’s so damn _sorry_ that he’s putting them through this. He’s so damn sorry that he couldn’t make the spell work the way it was supposed to…he’s so damn sorry that they’re going to have to watch him die for them. He doesn’t regret it, though.

Doesn’t regret it as the last dregs of _power_ race up through his veins and _out_ of him in a final burst that has him screaming through a mouthful of blood, arching up out of Lydia’s lap only to fall back boneless against her. 

Doesn’t regret it as someone hits their knees beside him, the thump of their weight hitting the ground oddly carrying over the pounding of his heart and the scream tearing out of his throat. 

Doesn’t regret it as rough hands—solid, strong, warm hands—abruptly seize him by the shoulders and lift him away from Lydia, shaking him (or maybe it’s just the hands that are shaking…he can’t tell, and everything is getting so dark). 

Doesn’t regret it as those hands tighten around him, suddenly real and clear and distinct in a way nothing else is right now; as Derek’s face suddenly looms over him, eyes gleaming red and so bright against the haze that’s settling across his vision. 

“How do we stop this?!” Derek shouts, the words carrying over everything, following him down and down and down the hole he feels like he’s falling into. Derek pulls him up so that he’s sitting, pulls him up so that he’s slumped against Derek’s chest and it’s strange…it’s strange and it’s wrong because Derek sounds—he sounds scared. “Damn it, Stiles, what did you do?” he shouts again, shaking him for real this time and Stiles wishes he could puzzle this out. Wishes he had the time and the energy and the strength to figure out why Derek’s hands are so gentle even while he’s shaking Stiles, why his voice has gone high and tight. “ **What did you do?** ” Derek demands, and it’s his worst voice, his Alpha voice, but it still sounds scared. 

He’s dying. He’s dying, and he can’t answer Derek’s questions, can’t make his mouth move or his tongue work, and he doesn’t regret this. 

Everything hurts. 


	2. Chapter 2

_Then_

There are about two weeks after everything goes down with Gerard Argent where Stiles lets himself possibly, cautiously, kinda-sorta believe that maybe Beacon Hills is going to settle down. School has let out for summer vacation (with only minimal damage to his GPA, taking the absolute shitstorm that the past couple of months have been into account), things are somewhat less strained with his dad, and things are just…quiet. That’s not to say they are perfect, of course. Stiles is the first to acknowledge that there’s a lot they—meaning him and Scott—haven’t dealt with yet. 

What exactly happened to Gerard Argent is still a big fucking question, and not one that Stiles is comfortable with leaving unanswered. He’s seen enough horror films (hell, his _life_ is enough of a horror film these days) to know that you never, ever, _ever_ just assume the bad guy is dead and gone unless you’ve emptied a clip into his/her/its face yourself. He’s not exactly sure where any of them stand with Chris Argent right now (he’s guessing reluctant truce? Mutual pact of non-aggression?), and that really needs to be addressed. He doesn’t even know how to begin to think about the whole situation with Allison. 

He gets it. Oh _God_ , does he get it…that anger, and that guilt, and that all-consuming grief. He knows what that kind of sadness can do to people, knows how very completely it can break you. He doesn’t have to look any farther than his own home to see how much that kind of loss changes you, and he can’t imagine how it was for Allison to go through that with the knowledge that her mother _chose_ it. _Chose_ to leave her. Add on Gerard’s particular brand of crazy—Jesus, the kind of insanity and manipulation that turned out Kate Argent—and he thinks he can understand how Allison lost herself for a while. 

But there’s a part of him that remembers Boyd and Erica’s bloodied, scared faces in that basement, the way they were strung up like fucking piñatas. He still jerks awake at night with the phantom feel of Argent’s fists crashing against his body and he can’t help but wonder how much Allison knew about what her grandfather was doing to him. To Boyd and Erica. And…and okay, maybe he doesn’t actually have a lot of room to talk. He’s uncomfortably aware that since Scott was bitten, he’s gotten to a point where he’s willing to kill to protect the people he cares about. He doesn’t like to think about it, about what it says about him that he can make that call at age sixteen. He doesn’t like to think about how he was the one encouraging Allison to shoot Derek that night they found out Jackson was the kanima, or how he was the one to put killing Jackson actually on the table. But…but…

There’s a difference between killing to _protect_ and killing for _revenge_ , isn’t there? There’s a difference between being willing to make a hard call and being willing to torture someone just because. There has to be. He doesn’t know if there’s even a moral high ground to be had anymore (and if there is, he really can’t say for certain if he has any claim to it), but there is something about what Allison became those last few days that makes him deeply, deeply uncomfortable. He doesn’t know what to do with that, and he doesn’t even know if it’s his place to _do_ anything. 

He hasn’t heard anything from Lydia or Jackson since the end of school. Jackson hadn’t even attended the last few weeks of the quarter (not that anyone even questioned that), and Lydia…well. Lydia was Lydia, and had strolled into school the Monday after everything that happened in that godforsaken warehouse with her Teen Queen mask firmly in place, and hadn’t let it slip so much as once for the rest of the year. It had been impressive to watch, but Stiles couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else noticed that she was wearing more and more (flawlessly applied) makeup. If anyone else heard the tiredness in her voice when she spoke. He doesn’t know what to do about Lydia, either. 

He saw what passed between Lydia and Jackson that night, and he knows he’ll never be able to touch that. Hell, if he’s being honest, he’s known for a long time that Lydia is never going to look at him the way he’s wanted her to for practically as long as he can remember. He may have joked to Scott about a fifteen year plan, but honestly? He’s not stupid. Nor is he a masochist, despite what others may think. He needs to get over her, and he’s determined to do so. Somehow. Eventually. Yeah. 

He hasn’t heard from Derek or any of the rest of Beacon Hills’ not-so-friendly-neighborhood wolf pack, apart from Isaac, and he’s not entirely certain if that makes him feel relieved or worried. He settles on a mixture of both. No news is good news, and all that, but he thinks it’s pretty damn obvious Isaac is hiding something, and they haven’t heard a peep from Erica or Boyd. 

He’s not even going to touch the whole ‘oh yeah, apparently Peter Hale has managed to un-barbecue himself’ thing. Not with a ten foot pole. As far as he’s concerned, that situation does not exist until he is forced to confront it with his own two eyes and he is perfectly content to put that off for as long as possible. 

Scott…he still can’t believe that Scott didn’t tell him what was going on with Gerard. That his best friend was trying to play fucking double agent. He gets why Scott made the choice he did. Sort of. And he knows down to the marrow of his bones that everything Scott did, he did with the best of intentions and because he _sincerely_ believed what he was doing was the best way to protect everyone around him. It’s just—things could’ve gone so wrong. So, so wrong, and Stiles would have had no idea. Things _did_ go wrong. He was kidnapped right off the fucking field, right under everyone’s noses and he had no warning, no idea that Gerard’s lackeys might have been gunning for him. He doesn’t know if Scott letting him in on the ‘secret plan’ could’ve prevented anything that happened to him that night, but he knows for damn sure it would’ve been harder to catch him unawares. 

It hurts…but Scott had made a choice. Nothing can change it, and so Stiles makes a choice as well, after his bruises have faded and he can draw a deep breath again without wincing. He throws balls at Scott’s head, and listens to his friend talk and laugh ruefully, and he makes a choice. He lets it go. Lets any resentment or anger die away without giving it voice and when he tells Scott that Scott still has him, he means it with all his heart. He forgives—the way he knows Scott forgives him for the part he played in Scott getting bitten—because it’s not worth it. It’s not worth damage and strain on their friendship when there’s so much else to spend their energy on. He can’t do that to Scott. He can’t do that to himself. He forgives. He works on forgetting.

So yes, there are a couple of weeks where things are quiet. Not perfect. Not even okay, really. Just quiet. And after everything they’ve been through, he’ll take ‘quiet’ and hold onto it with both hands. He enjoys it—albeit warily—tries to focus on the things that _are_ okay. He tries to catch his breath, tries to focus on breaking the surface of the supernatural fucking quagmire his life has become, tries to catch up on sleep and food and stop feeling like he’s going to poison himself with adrenaline. For about two weeks, he lets himself believe that Beacon Hills is just calm. He lets himself believe there is nothing waiting on the horizon. 

He should know better by now. He really fucking should. 

He gets two weeks before he is forcibly reminded that there is no ‘calm’ in his hometown anymore. Not when you’re in the know about the things that go bump in the night. There’s only the calm before the next storm. Two weeks into his summer vacation, he gets a call from Deaton. As soon as he recognizes the man’s voice, he knows their reprieve is over. There’s no point in hoping otherwise. He leans tiredly against his kitchen counter, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying hard to ignore the way his heart immediately jumps into his throat. He listens to what Deaton has to say, and realizes it’s not just another storm on the horizon. 

It’s a goddamn hurricane.


	3. Chapter 3

“An Alpha pack?! As in, a whole pack of Alphas? This is a thing that _exists_?!”

He doesn’t mean to do it. He really doesn’t. He knows it’s a terrible idea even as he’s throwing himself into the jeep bare seconds after finishing his conversation with Deaton, and damn near flooring it all the way out to the Hale property. He’s knows it’s a terrible idea as he throws himself right back out of the jeep and storms up to what passes for the front door of Derek’s house—eyes narrowing as he takes in the places where the door’s been scrubbed and scratched at, and is still showing a faint outline of the symbol Deaton told him to be on the lookout for—yelling at the top of his lungs. This is pretty much the opposite of the way he should be handling the situation, the opposite of the way he _wanted_ to deal with Derek and the now-undead Peter Hale. He just…he just…

He’s so damn _tired_ of this. 

All of it. He’s tired of secrets, and tired of the way that no one trusts each other even a little bit. He’s sick of feeling like there’s always a giant sword dangling above his head, and is just waiting for it to come down on his neck. He’s angry as hell that Isaac hasn’t said anything about this Alpha pack to Scott (and goddamn it, he _knew_ that guy was hiding something). He’s even angrier at Deaton. 

Because he’s not stupid. Stiles is more than a little sure that Deaton is the reason Scott didn’t let him in on his desperate (suicidal) plan to play Gerard Argent. He’s a cop’s kid and he’s read a shit-ton of comics. Deaton is totally the seemingly harmless mentor dude with a secret past in this scenario, and those guys _always_ hide just as much as they ever tell. He’s Shepherd Book. Deaton is _totally_ Shepherd motherfucking Book and that guy was scary. Stiles may not think Deaton means him or Scott—or any of the wolves, apart from Peter, maybe—any actual harm, but he has no problem believing the man would withhold possibly vital information to try and manipulate a situation. 

Stiles is so goddamn _sick_ of feeling like a pawn. A piece to be thrown away and pushed aside and sacrificed so that the bigger, badder, more important pieces can carry out their plans. He’s sick of it. 

So he ignores all common sense and rushes up the rickety steps to the burnt out husk of Derek’s home, shouting at the top of his lungs. It’s impulsive. It’s stupid. It’s pretty much guaranteed to get Derek pissed off at him (and Derek is surly and uncommunicative at the best of times…when he’s angry, all bets are off). He doesn’t care. 

The door flies open just as he reaches the top of the stairs and Derek appears, looming in the doorway like every cliché in the book. His face is set in an unfriendly glare—though thankfully, there are no glowing eyes…yet—arms crossed over his chest. His jaw is clenched tight in the way that Stiles has come to realize means he’s holding onto his temper with both hands, but more than that, he looks…haggard. 

The near-perpetual stubble is thicker than normal, close to becoming a full-on beard, and there are dark circles standing out under his eyes. Derek looks _tired_ , and how bad does a situation have to be to start affecting a fucking _Alpha werewolf_ like this? Stiles stumbles back a half-step, but recovers quickly and matches Derek glare-for-glare. He’s not in the mood to sympathize, right now. 

“Derek,” he grits out. “Hi. How’s it going? How’s the weather? Anything new going on? Like, oh, I don’t know—a pack of freakin’ Alphas moving into town?” He’s shouting again by the last sentence, arms flung outwards. Derek’s eyes narrow dangerously, and he lifts his chin a little. 

“What did Isaac tell you?” he growls (honest-to-God growls, a low rumble under his words that set the hair on the back of Stiles’ neck standing on end. Not that he’ll ever admit that.). 

“Isaac? Oh don’t worry, Isaac’s still playing good little soldier—and don’t think I’m just gonna let that go—Deaton called me. And what the fuck, Derek? In what alternate universe is something like a pack of **Alphas** something you keep to yourself?! Don’t you dare try to tell me they’re here for anything good!” At that, Derek lunges forward, stalking towards him with real anger in his eyes—oh yeah and _now_ they’re glowing red—and Stiles stumbles back a little out of habit. 

“Gee, I don’t know Stiles,” Derek hisses furiously, “maybe the same universe where you and Scott keep me in the dark about the con he and his boss are running on Argent? The one where he pretends to join my _pack_ , and then just throws it in our faces?!” 

He keeps advancing, backing Stiles down the steps. Stiles nearly trips over his own feet as they hit the soft earth in front of the porch, but regains his balance and, winging a quick prayer to anyone who might be listening that Derek’s not about to _actually_ commit any of the violence he’s always threatening towards him, surges forward into Derek’s personal space. “Look, that was a dick move, okay? I get why you’re pissed, but this is more important.” 

Derek scoffs, turning to head back up the porch steps. “Go home, Stiles,” he mutters dismissively. “This isn’t your problem.” 

For a moment, Stiles can only stand there, frozen in indecision. He wants to do exactly what Derek’s suggesting…just go home and wash his hands of stupid, stubborn Alphas. He doesn’t have the energy (or the inclination) to argue with and cajole Derek right now…and if Derek doesn’t want to pool their resources, hell, it’s not like he and Scott haven’t muddled their way through things on their own before. He wants to just go home. 

He knows he can’t. 

“Goddamn it,” he says softly. “Derek! Dude, you can’t just shut us out of this.” Derek doesn’t turn around, but he does stop on the porch with one hand on the doorjamb. Stiles plunges on. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, Scott didn’t tell _me_ what he was doing, either. I mean, Jesus, Scott can barely keep a poker face playing Go Fish…there had to be a better way than him running off to play double agent with freakin’ werewolf hunters.” 

The tense set of Derek’s shoulders eases some, and he sighs heavily as he swings around to face Stiles again. “This isn’t your problem,” he repeats firmly, and though most of the heat has drained from his voice, there is still a thread of anger running through the words. 

This time, it is Stiles’ turn to scoff. 

“Right. Because the big, new supernatural threat in town is totally gonna leave me and Scott alone. Give me a fucking break. We’re involved. We’re all involved, and the last time we were all playing our own side it came and bit us in the collective ass! We’re lucky no one _died_ , man! I mean…not permanently, anyway.” 

Derek sighs again, rolling his neck from side to side before fixing Stiles with another hard glare. “Scott made himself perfectly clear in that warehouse,” he says caustically. “He’s not my responsibility.” 

Stiles grits his teeth, resisting the urge to just scream in frustration. “Fine! But you know what? The others _are_. Erica and Boyd and Isaac are. Hell, maybe Jackson, too…I don’t know. And you know there’s a better chance of all of us living through this if you and Scott are working together.” 

A low, nearly inaudible growl starts rumbling through Derek’s chest, his eyes going narrow. His expression is hard and blank, yet Stiles somehow still gets the impression that there is some kind of internal argument going on. The moment stretches, long and interminable, but at last, Derek’s shoulders drop. He leans back against the doorframe, staring off at a point somewhere over Stiles’ shoulder. 

“Erica and Boyd are missing,” he says, his voice flat and unemotional. He takes a deep breath, his expression not flickering even one iota. “We know they have them.” 

Stiles swallows heavily, something cold and leaden settling in the pit of his stomach at the words. Unwillingly, his mind flashes back to the day the kanima—Jackson—had attacked them in the library. To the way Erica had curled against him after Derek broke her arm, her scared, shaking voice. He thinks of her and Boyd in the Argents’ basement, how scared and bloody and _broken_ they’d looked. And…and okay, yeah, there had been—problems, after they were turned. Erica and Isaac had been _scary_ , and while Boyd had never actually seemed as batshit power-crazed as the other two, he’d certainly had no problems following Derek’s orders to try and kill Lydia. 

But…but in that basement, that had all been stripped away. In that basement, they had both (they had _all_ ) just been terrified kids, caught up in something they should never have had to handle. 

“You—you think they’re still alive?” he asks, his own gaze dropping to the sagging, smoke-stained floorboards of the porch. He shoves his hands in his pockets, clenching them into fists. He presses his lips together, his head spinning unpleasantly. God. He’d known it was bad. Deaton wouldn’t have warned him if it wasn’t going to be bad (and they are going to have to re-visit the question of how Deaton knew the Alpha pack was in town if Derek was being so secretive about it), but he hadn’t been expecting this. 

He doesn’t…he doesn’t _like_ any of Derek’s pack, per se. Even if Erica had softened towards him, even if they had worked together that night at Jungle. But…God, he doesn’t want anyone to _die_. He doesn’t even want Derek to die, if it comes to that. Not really. 

“Yes,” Derek says, absolute certainty in his voice. A bitter, mirthless chuckle follows the words. “Believe me, we’d know if they were dead. The Alphas would make sure of it.”

Stiles absolutely _does not want_ to think about all the things that statement can mean. 

“Okay,” he says softly. He sucks in a breath, hissing through his teeth. “Okay. How, uh, how do you wanna play this?” He looks up to find Derek regarding him with a strange expression on his face. Questioning, almost. 

“Scott really didn’t tell you what he was doing?” Derek asks suddenly, some of the harshness gone from his voice. Stiles shrugs, looking away and biting down on the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He may be willing to forgive Scott for it…but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Apparently, his silence is enough of an answer for Derek. “Your father—when’s the next time he’s on night-shift?” 

Stiles swallows again, biting back an indelicate snort and ignoring the little stab that always accompanies thoughts of his dad these days. “They still haven’t re-staffed the station,” he says quietly. “Dad’s always on shift these days.” 

For a brief moment, something flickers across Derek’s carefully blank features, an expression Stiles is too fucking tired to identify or analyze right now. It’s gone in an instant, though, and Derek is nodding brusquely. “Fine. I’ll come by your place tomorrow night. Make sure Scott’s there. We’ll talk.” 

Stiles bristles automatically at the imperious orders, but deflates almost as quickly as he realizes he has no real reason to argue with them. His house is about as close to ‘neutral ground’ as it’s going to get for Scott and Derek, and with his dad working doubles all this week, he can pretty much guarantee they won’t be disturbed. He’ll have his laptop for instant access to whatever research he manages to get through between now and tomorrow night, and, well, he can’t really argue against the timetable. He’s the one who brought up the urgency of the situation, after all. Still…hell if he’s just going to roll over and let Derek call all the shots. 

“Fine,” he says, “but Peter’s not coming anywhere near my house.” 

Derek arches an eyebrow at him, but nods sharply a moment later. “Believe me, not a problem,” he mutters. With that, Derek turns and steps back into the ruined house without a backward glance, shutting the door firmly behind him. Stiles is left standing awkwardly on the porch, rocking back and forth on his heels. 

“Yeah, great,” he sighs, rolling his eyes. “Good talk, buddy, good talk.” 

All during the drive back to his house, he debates with himself over the best way to get Scott onboard with the whole working-with-Derek-again plan. If he’s honest with himself, he knows it’s going to be one hell of a tough sell. He doesn’t like the idea very much, himself, and he doesn’t have _half_ the issues with Derek that Scott does. 

It’s the safest option, though. He means what he said back at the Hale property…working together is their best—possibly, their only—chance of coming through this latest supernatural shitstorm alive. If these Alphas have already taken Erica and Boyd, who knows what they’re planning on doing next? Scott may be strong, but surely he’s not strong enough to take on a whole group of Alphas…

And whatever agenda the Alphas have isn’t even the whole of what they have to deal with. 

He pulls onto his street, fingers tightening on the steering wheel as the long, _long_ list of issues they’re facing starts reeling off in his head. The Alphas. Erica and Boyd. Isaac’s apparent willingness to keep important information secret just on Derek’s say-so. Deaton’s ability to know said secret information and just what agenda _he’s_ playing. The Argents and what this new incursion will do to the fragile-as-spun-glass ‘live and let live’ mentality that Chris Argent seems to have adopted in regards to Beacon Hills’ werewolf population. The increasingly insistent feeling Stiles is getting that he’s going to be forced to come clean with his dad sooner, rather than later, and drag his father into the maelstrom that his life has become. 

The goddamn fact that he just had to tell Derek not to bring his creepy, murderous, undead uncle to the meeting because his creepy, murderous uncle is _undead_. 

Though he has to admit, the fact that Derek had seemed just as put-off by the idea of including Peter as Stiles is somewhat comforting. 

All in all, as he pulls into his driveway, he’s suddenly as tired as if he’s been doing sprints all day on the lacrosse field, rather than just getting back from an hour’s errand. He reaches up to scrub one hand over his eyes as he pulls the keys out of the ignition. He slides out of the jeep with his mind racing a mile a minute, still trying to figure out just what he’s going to say to Scott. 

His thoughts come screeching to a halt, though, as he trudges up the short walkway that leads from the garage, and catches sight of the figure sitting on the steps in front of the front door. 

“Lydia?”


End file.
